Website Translation can be a tricky process. Web documents are written using a simple mark-up language, HTML, and this code must remain undamaged during the translation process. If your site is a simple one, written using only HTML, then it is relatively easy to send us the HTML files, as you would any Microsoft Office document, and we can translate the text included in it without damaging your code.
Website translation and conversion
Website translation and conversion
Website translation and conversion
Website translation and conversion
Website translation and conversion
Website translation and conversion
Translating Interactive Webpages
These days web pages are often not only simple HTML documents but can include snippets of server-side code. This is code that is run only when the page is requested from the web server and can do clever stuff including connecting to, and retrieving text from, databases. The most common server-side programming languages are ASP and PHP. You can recognise pages which contain this code as the file extension will be either .asp or .php rather than simply .html or .htm.
Extra care has to be taken when translating these pages. Not only must the HTML structure of the page remain intact but the code on the page must not be changed or moved. Our media manager has had many years experience building websites in HTML, ASP and PHP and will be able to identify the code within your pages and make sure any server-side text is translated without damaging your code.
Translating Database Driven Websites
PHP and ASP are often used to retrieve text from databases. This text is not contained in the HTML page but is written to the page only when your client requests the page from the web server. When translating database driven sites we will ask you for a ‘dump’ of the text from the database. This may sound daunting but usually it is quite easy to extract the text from databases in the csv or Excel format as long as you have access to your web server’s files. If you don’t have this access you will have to ask your hosting service for this text dump.
Translating Images on Web Sites
Of course, web pages seldom consist solely of text. Images may be used as navigation buttons or may have larger amounts of text on them. In order to re-create the images with the translated text we would need to ask you for the ‘layered’ image files. These are the original files the designer would have created and will probably be .psd (Photoshop file) or a .png (Adobe Fireworks). These files consist of ‘layers’ – the text will be separate from the design or photograph at this stage. When the file is exported from your image editing software as a jpeg or gif it is ‘flattened’ and the text on the image becomes impossible to edit. If the image is very simple, such as a button with a plain background, it may be possible to recreate it from the flattened file but for more complicated images the layered file is a necessity.
And all the other stuff!
As well as text and images web sites can also contain a plethora of different media files and code including Flash movies, Javascript ands audio files. Adelphi’s in-house experts can handle all these formats and can complete the translation and localisation of your web site into any language. If you can hand over all your web files and layered images, original Flash files and JavaScript files we can return a fully functional, translated web site ready to load onto your web server. We can also offer advice on language selection menus, sub-domians and foreign language domains (such as yourwebsite.jp) to make sure your new foreign language web site is ready to start conveying your message to your new market, wherever it is in the world. Did we mention that Adelphi is not just another translation agency?
